Eye movements track prioritized auditory features in selective attention to natural speech.

Publisher: Nature Pub. Group Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 101528555 Publication Model: Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 2041-1723 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 20411723 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Nat Commun Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: [London] : Nature Pub. Group

Speech* ; Attention* ; Eye Movements* ; Auditory Perception*; Humans ; Magnetoencephalography ; Eye-Tracking Technology ; Ocular Physiological Phenomena ; Speech Perception ; Cognition ; Hearing ; Time Factors ; Male ; Female ; Adult ; Speech Intelligibility

Over the last decades, cognitive neuroscience has identified a distributed set of brain regions that are critical for attention. Strong anatomical overlap with brain regions critical for oculomotor processes suggests a joint network for attention and eye movements. However, the role of this shared network in complex, naturalistic environments remains understudied. Here, we investigated eye movements in relation to (un)attended sentences of natural speech. Combining simultaneously recorded eye tracking and magnetoencephalographic data with temporal response functions, we show that gaze tracks attended speech, a phenomenon we termed ocular speech tracking. Ocular speech tracking even differentiates a target from a distractor in a multi-speaker context and is further related to intelligibility. Moreover, we provide evidence for its contribution to neural differences in speech processing, emphasizing the necessity to consider oculomotor activity in future research and in the interpretation of neural differences in auditory cognition.
(© 2024. The Author(s).)

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W 1233-B Austrian Science Fund (Fonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung); W 1233-B Austrian Science Fund (Fonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung); W 1233-B Austrian Science Fund (Fonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung); 871232 Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft (Austrian Research Promotion Agency); 871232 Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft (Austrian Research Promotion Agency); 871232 Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft (Austrian Research Promotion Agency)

Date Created: 20240501 Date Completed: 20240701 Latest Revision: 20240701

20250114

PMC11063150

10.1038/s41467-024-48126-2

38693186